Creating space for your soul to breathe so you can discern your next right thing.

The Spiritual Discipline of Touring Your Own Hometown

It’s the season of spring break and many of us have traveling on our minds. It can be easy, for me anyway, to romanticize places other than home.

I have a mixed relationship with traveling. I would actually love to travel if it wasn’t for the travel. In the future, I will be the first to download the teleportation app our children’s children invent one day. No need for airplanes or long car rides!

Seeing new places and unique people around the world are all rich experiences, offering a different context my soul often longs for, especially as I’m cultivating a creative life. Leaving home helps wake us up, asks us to pay attention, and invites us to be open to transformation.

But if I depend on a change of scenery as my main catalyst for rest, inspiration, or perspective, I’m in danger of cultivating a sour mood towards home.

The truth is we don’t need to be in a different zip code in order to experience a meaningful vacation or a break from the daily grind.

If work, money, or lack of time is keeping you home this spring break season, perhaps you can still discover a getaway for your soul without all the fuss by being a tourist in your own hometown.

Last week John and I went on the best overnight date night we’ve been on in years and we didn’t have to go far to enjoy it.

A few months ago, I saw that Jewel was coming to Greensboro. Her voice served as a soundtrack for my freshmen year of college and then last year I read her memoir, Never Broken. Plus one of our favorite shows, Alaska the Last Frontier is all about her family so of course we decided to snag tickets and make a night of it.

I haven’t always been aware of the types of things I enjoy, even less able to plan my own nights out. Call it a good girl thing, but I spent a good amount of high school and college Maggie Carpenter-ing my way through decisions. Not that I left a lot of men at the altar, just that I wasn’t always aware of what I wanted, what I liked, and who I was.

That’s an important part of the discipline of touring your own hometown. I believe anything can be a spiritual discipline when we recognize the presence of God with us in it. So whether you moved here just last month or if you were born in the hospital down the street – this place is part of who you are now. This place holds your story, at least a piece of it. This is the place where God wants to meet you, for better or worse.

One way to honor the place where you are is to tour it on purpose.

A lot of things came together for our date night – good weather, great food, and lovely music – but most of all I think I enjoyed myself because we found the fun right here in Greensboro.

I picked the kids up from school and took them for a McDonald’s “smoothie” (can we call them that?) I want them to have good memories associated with us leaving for the night. I’m thankful John’s mom lives nearby and was happy to come stay with them for the night.

We checked in to a local hotel and set out on foot for the rest of the evening.

That felt important, walking through our town on foot. You see things you miss just driving through, and spontaneously run in to people you may not normally see.

We sat outside to eat dinner slow, ordered appetizers, entrees and dessert. Is all that food essential to a great night out on a tour in your own hometown? No, but it was a nice treat. Besides, we saved the money we would have spent traveling. Win!

We waved as a former student passed by on Elm Street, then later chatted with one of the girls’ middle school teachers we spotted eating outside a restaurant. We stood in line at the Carolina Theatre with an old friend from church.

And can I just talk about Jewel for a minute? She opened the night with an a cappella version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow and then stood there singing for two hours with the simple company of two guitars, an adorable dress, and a voice that could slay dragons and win wars.

It was a lovely night made lovelier by the fact that we were only 10 minutes from home.

We walked back to the hotel after 11 pm which is typically way past my bedtime. But as we walked down familiar streets humming Who Will Save Your Soul, I was deeply grateful for our city, where both beautiful things and hard things have happened.

This is where we live and where our people live. We’re learning to love this place and to receive what it has to offer. In turn, we’re learning where we fit and finding our voice among her people.

In a way I can’t explain, spending the evening together in our own hometown brought out the me in me. And I liked what I saw. Also? If you plan to practice the spiritual discipline of touring your own hometown, might I suggest buying the t-shirt too?

Because we totally did. Why buy a shirt from a place you’ll only visit once? Grab a shirt from your own town and celebrate home right where you are.

Reader Interactions

Comments

Emily , hello .
I love the beauty and simplicity of touring your home town. Often think how we take for granted our own space . 😊 When we notice what is there, it’s precious. Thank you for your posts and sharing .

I really like this post! You’re right that too often we let tight finances, an older vehicle, or life’s busyness dictate our feeling like we can’t take a vacation. There are so many beautiful things all around us, if we just slow down (walk!), and take a look!

One things I really appreciate about your posts are your beautiful, thoughtful photos. I, along with my family, have always loved photography. But since reading your blog posts and newsletters, I have begun to take way too many pictures of the sky! I’m also spending more time at home (between jobs), so often I’m “stuck” in my house. I can’t believe how beautiful and different God’s art of the sky has been! It’s a canvas I’ve often ignored in the busyness of life.

We booked a night on the beach one weekend that a friend was getting married. My man was going out of town the week that followed, and so we decided to get away “in town” before he left. After the wedding, we checked into the hotel…. never did make it down to the beach… just ordered room service and spent a lot of time being silly with each other. I like to call it the spiritual discipline of ordering room service in your jammies. 🙂

I love this Emily. Why? Because we said no to a darling cottage in the English countryside and decided to stay home for spring break and visit places in London that we haven’t seen yet. On the list are the most popular bookstores in the city and some charming mews for Instagram photos. I may have to buy the London t-shirt, I think that’s such a fun thing to suggest. BTW, I’m savoring Simply Tuesday and can’t help but write about the quotes that are jumping off the page. I’m loving it!

Okay you’re totally making me want to go stay in Greensboro for a weekend! We’re only 30 minutes away and I’m there at least 3 times a week for shopping, Dr’s visits, etc but to stay and actually enjoy it…….well now that’s sounding pretty cool to me. Oh and we are growing to love our hometown as well …moved from Atlanta to tiny Reidsville but we LOVE it. Small and quaint with much character.

My husband and I have done this for the last two years (at home in Chapel Hill) and LOVE it. Staycations are so good for our souls. Love the way you made your way through this post, making sense of why we come alive when we enjoy home.

Totally agree! I’m not a “Disney Mom” that goes to FL every school break we have and traveling can seem overwhelming to me at times. No offense to Mother Nature who can be fickle and put a damper on vacations with rain & cloudy days that we can’t predict when planning months in advance. I can see so much and experience so much around our town that I tend forget when everyone else is posting pics at a beach or some fancy resort of some sort, so on and so forth. We’ve “staycationed” & “nearcationed” the last several times and it was a blast! You are so humble and your posts help settle my soul to want bigger and better because social media can make me feel like loser most of the time.

We tend to take many things for granted. People think they have to “go somewhere” on vacation to have a relaxing time. The opposite may be true! I find staycations just fine with me!!! Living in Upper E. TN there are many towns to explore & beautiful sites to see. Why just waking up each day to gorgeous mountains is a pleasure for me!

I totally loved this post! My husband and I are celebrating our 28th anniversary tomorrow and we have gone away for a weekend every year to someplace different! Because we live just outside of LA, many times it has been just a weekend to another suburb. Some people don’t get it, but it is fun to be a tourist in a familiar place. You see it in a different way and can discover so many new things! And many times in between our getaways, we will walk to dinner down the street, sit outside on the restaurant patio, and pretend we are on vacation. Your times are what you make of it and vacations can be made of many moments! Thanks for sharing about your fun evening!

Everything about this hits home for me. My husband and I have lived in Winston (neighbors!) for just over a year now. When we moved here, we knew we would be moving again for his job within the next year and a half. We agreed to invest our time in relationships and the city despite the ticking clock, and it has truly made Winston feel like home. While we have our favorite spots, we are still finding new things to do! God is so faithful in where he leads us, and I am learning and trusting more and more that he will do the same when we move in June.

It reminds me of the verse in Acts 17:26-27: “From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.”

Our family (dear husband and 7 kids) are in that nostalgic-excited-scared-grateful time of straddling the country as we prepare to move from San Francisco to Raleigh in 8 weeks!
Half of our heart is here and the other half is in Raleigh-touring schools, hiring a “Lawntender?” (not many lawns in SF,) learning a totally different world where people call me “Miss Heidi”, there are trees everywhere, and neighbors in our cul-de-sac (yes, a cul-de-sac! So perfect that I starting reading Simply Tuesdays this fall!) already stopped by bearing gifts of friendship, advice, and personalized key chains with our name our and new address ;0)
Trying desperately to prepare our new home to feel like home when we get there. But still remain present to San Francisco…and so after reading your post I asked my husband out on an early evening date, with a stroll through Golden Gate Park (who strolls anywhere when you have 10 kids!) and a promise to try a new restaurant…and a 3 course meal.

Dear Heidi! What a move that will be. wow! We love living in North Carolina – it’s a beautiful state to call home. But I know the pain of living in two worlds for now is hard – I hope you feel welcome when you arrive and that North Carolina works her way into your heart sooner than later.

Emily! I was in Greensboro last weekend and my boyfriend and I stopped at Scuppernongs. We heard an open mic for the Triad Writing Group (or some variation on that name), had coffee and spent time wandering the isles. I. Love. It. I go every time I am in the Borough (I live in Raleigh), but I have one singular complaint. I looked in their local authors section, ready to take my IG photo of one of your books, and to tag you. I didn’t see any! How is that possible, and how do we fix it? Sign me up!

I live in Racine, WI- our beach on Lake Michigan is rated well nationally, we have Frank Lloyd Wright architecture here, some of the best thin crust pizza- Wells Brothers- and the area is shifting and changing in some interesting ways. I’m also 1/2 hour out of Milwaukee…
Anyhoo, I mentioned all of that to say this:
I needed to read your blog to receive some much-needed encouragement to tour my hometown. I’m also born and raised here. I lived away for a 7 year period, during which I lived 3 different (count ’em- 3!) places. It’s been tough staying in one place- life has been hard… Long story.
Thank you for a great piece about your vacation at home. I needed it right now.